EDITED: Sorry for all the typos. I've had a long day. Umm, so? First of all, he's right. Have you ever thought of why you want to receive tacky pink and red gifts that have no thought gone into them? Why do you want to sit in a restaurant with other people exactly like you? I'm sorry, but if your boyfriend actually loves and respects you, then it shouldn't have to take a Hallmark holiday for him to express it in some way. Do you even know where the holiday came from? Besides "it was after St. Valentine"? Do you even know who that is? Why he is being celebrated? Or why his holiday was bastardized just like Christmas? Not to say that I'm religious, in fact I do not believe in religion, but I'm simply trying to make a point. It's people like you who perpetuate the "holiday" because you think you "have to" receive "heartfelt" sentiments from a lover, when really they probably picked the card, roses, chocolates and over-sized red bear with a heart up at WalMart or some drug store minutes before walking in the door with it. Since you probably don't know: The holiday first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. I took this from a considerably longer article on the origins of the "holiday". There was so much information I didn't read the entire thing, which means that Valentine's Day is infinitely larger and more sophisticated than cheap greeting cards and over-priced chocolate. There's history and depth to it, albeit religious, but still far better than what it's like today. You should count yourself lucky that your boyfriend doesn't insult you by giving you useless mass-produced consumer crap. Buying designated stuff on a designated day because someone says it's what's supposed to happen isn't love. And it certainly isn't respect. Most people do it just to get laid, because their partner is gullible enough to believe that chocolates and roses represent real love and devotion. If you want a significant other who buys your affection with gifts and poetry, then go for it. Just think about this too: the amount to effort they put into their gift, or money. The more generic and expensive, the less they're likely to give a shit about what it means, to you or to them. Whatever. I don't really care. I don't associate myself with people who invest "the norm". Do what you want; you're probably already an empty person.

You seem to think that Valentine's Day was originally more meaningful because it was established during a time when courtly love was a popular notion. And now that Hallmark has co-opted it for moneymaking purposes, the holiday is now meaningless, right? And everyone that celebrates Valentine's Day is an ignorant automaton that will buy any tacky pink crap that their capitalist masters tell them to. If you knew anything about courtly love, then you would know how stupid that argument sounds. The idea of courtly love was created to discourage adultery when marriages were loveless. Yes, back then, marriages were based on MONEY (that thing Hallmark is so terrible for trying to make, remember?). Imagine: you're a young woman back in Chaucer's time, married to a lord that you don't give a shit about because your union is mutually beneficial to your families' assets. Your husband employs this charming knight that makes your heart stop. What's going to prevent you from throwing yourself at him every time your husband's back is turned? How about a manufactured moral code that encourages you to express your love -- even congratulates you for your high-minded, transcendent purity -- as long as you never, ever consummate it? That way, your feelings can be molded into a shape that doesn't threaten the economic order. If Valentine's Day really was inspired by courtly love, then I think that today's version of it is actually an improvement. All Hallmark wants is a little profit -- not to trap you into a marriage with someone that you barely know just so your first-born son can be a little more wealthy than your father was. Don't like useless, mass-produced consumer crap? Then buy your sweetheart a thoughtful, romantic, personal gift. You can even stick with chocolates -- there are plenty of quality candies out there that will make a foodie swoon at any time of the year, and they don't come in holiday packaging. Don't flat-out refuse to celebrate Valentine's Day at all, because that only makes you look cheap (and therefore, that you don't care about your lover).

This. For that matter, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread, Valentines Day didn't actually start in the middle ages. It actually originated in a Roman fertility festival called Lupercalia. In essence (there was a bit more to it than this) the point of the festival was for men to run around whipping women with special strips of hide in hopes that it would make them fertile. When Christianity began to take over things, as with many other holidays the Church found that the best way to stop people from celebrating the pagan festivals was to replace them with Christian festival. Voila, St. Valentines Day.

and christmans, halloween, easter and so on :)

it's 365 and 1/4.. that's why leap year is every 4 years, not every 3.